Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Little Bit Of Poetry

Courtesy of my Father, who occasionally gets bored at work:

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.


Wallace Stevens (1922)

Sunday, May 11, 2008

A Little More Philosophy. Just Because I Can.

"In a confused way, they (monads) all strive after the infinite, the whole; but they are limited and differentiated by the degrees of their distinct perceptions."

"For all is a plenum...and in the plenum every motion has an effect upon distant bodies is proportion to their distance.....Wherefore it follows that this inter-communication of things extends to any distance, however great. And that consequently every body feels the effect of all that takes place in the universe, so that he who sees all might read in each what is happening everywhere, and even what has happened or shall happen....But a soul can read in itself only that which is there represented distinctly...." - G.W. Leibniz


...some confidence in the character of the enemy must remain even in the midst of war, as otherwise no peace could be concluded and the hostilities would degenerate into a war of extermination. -Immanuel Kant, "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch."

Oh, and by the way? If any person is currently touching fire, it's burning them. Just so ya'll can't say you weren't warned.

A Little Piece of Philosophy

"All things which are in nature are either things or actions. Now good and evil are neither things nor actions. Therefore good and evil do not exist in nature. " B. Spinoza

Discuss.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Coke

This old commercial for Coca-Cola has been the spawn of many personal plans and dreams. Mostly dashed by cruel reality, as plans and dreams so often are. Firstly, I ought to to note that the first verse was used, during my shana baaretz, also known as shana aleph, (by which I mean, to those not so fluent in Jewish American post-high school jargon, my first year in seminary, or first post high-school year) in a medley in the seminary choir competition. This is relevant mostly because that's how I was, shamefully, first made aware of its existence; secondarily because I was just listening to the album again (I only ever listen to these things during sfira, bc they're mostly accapella) and since I am supposed to be studying for a philosophy final and there is only so much Descartes a woman can take in one go, I decided a cool way to procrastinate would be to look up the original commercial on youtube, since I'd never actually seen it. (Deep breath.) (Hee, see the reason that's funny is bc I don't actually run out of breath when I'm typing, bc I do that with my fingers. But when you read it you hear a voice in your head which should in theory be running out of breath and so you feel like there should be a deep breath needed at the end. But see, actually, there isn't a deep breath needed, bc of the aforementioned finger thing. So. Yeah. Anyway.)

Anyway, after said concert someone mentioned that actually this was an old coke commercial in which a young women wanders around a busy city street handing out free cokes and singing. And I was all like "Omhigod we should totally do that! That would be so much fun!" Which generated a fair amount of general enthusiasm until we all realized that you couldn't actually do that on a real city street, bc people would probably think you were trying to poison them, or spread some kind of biological weapon or something, and we'd probably just get arrested. Cities have become a lot less fun that way over the last couple of decades or so. Like, for another example, we also had this awesome idea whereby we were totally gonna set up this party on the El (the Chicago train system for poor people) which means basically we'd get on the train somewhere, set up decorations and food and drinks and play music from a boom box and start dancing about and basically just having a party, and whoever wandered into our car would join in. Only the CTA has rules about playing music on public transportation, so we figured we'd probably get shut down before we really had the chance to enjoy it enough so that the endeavor would have been worth the trouble. I think this idea was also based on a commercial. I may or may not have seen this one, but in any case I don't remember what it was for, so I don't think I could look it up. (Anyone? Anyone? (Bueller?) (Sorry. I had to.) No, it's not the Bacardi one, this party was actually on a train.)
Anyway, please enjoy the fruits of my procrastination. Oh, and the coke commercial is accapella, so no sfira worries there. :)